When the winter weather gets terrible, instead of seeing it as execuse to curl up indoors, I find myself grabbing my gear and heading into the storm. At this point in my life, I've logged enough hours driving in pretty abysmal conditions of just about every imaginable stripe. As a PNWer, I've rarely experienced blizzards in my home state so I saw a 16F day with 65+ MPH wind gusts as an opportunity.

Driving conditions started off not terrible, I84 was mostly clear of snow due to the winds. On my way on old Columbia Highway, I cleared a downed branch, and on the way up Multnomah Falls, I moved several logs off the trail.

The visibility dropped during my hike (as seen in the video at the end), and rather than keep venturing further, I decided to drive back as visibility was so poor. It was comparable to the extreme fog often in the Redwoods on 101, where 25 mph seems like a big ask. I ended up driving with my emergency blinkers back into town and taking the advise of TLC even though I wanted to check out Horsetail Falls.

On my drive back, I started seeing more evidences of the storm. Large swathes of Portland were without power and trees were downed. Each day during the snowpocalypse/icepocalypse I made my way out into Portland. I saw multiple trees on houses, downed power lines and houses without power. My neighborhood was relatively well off, despite lots of large branches falling and a few trees.